On an otherwise deserted subway platform a young woman sat holding her infant child, slowly rocking and softly singing. She either failed to notice or ignored the pale, overheated family of travelers across the tracks, but she was not singing for our entertainment. Her haunting, wordless melody soared and rested, moving gracefully with the flow of her breath and emotion. During the too-brief moment between trains, her voice reverberated through the tunnel and found us, leaving us profoundly moved by its tender intensity and instinctive physical fluidity. This young mother’s music inspired Dreamscape, most directly the primary theme, heard first in the choir of three flutes. The rest of the piece grew from the flutes’ melody.

Like any dream, the music in this piece can change unpredictably. There are fluctuations in tempo and mood, tonality, meter, and at times there may seem to be no solid footing. At the moment of waking, the orchestra pronounces [through a trick of transcription from sonogram analysis of the human voice] the name for the bond between mother and child.

This piece would never have made it this far without the input and patience of UCR’s faculty, and the support and love of Melody Ellis and the rest of my family. This performance is dedicated to them.
-Andrew Valdini

Bio

Andrew Valdini has studied piano since age 7 and viola since age 10. He received his BA in 1995 from Reed College, where he studied music with David Schiff. He then went on to study composition with Peter Golub and Tomas Svoboda in Portland before moving to San Francisco to study with David Conte and Conrad Susa at the Conservatory of Music. Since then he has been pursuing his Master’s degree in music composition at UC Riverside under the tutelage of Byron Adams and Ethan Nasreddin-Longo. He currently resides in San Diego, CA.